A blog for the creation of a game for Capstone 2 for Northeastern University.

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Polish, Polish, Tutorial

We're fully into polish mode for our demo for Game Demo Day at this point. We keep telling ourselves we're content locked, but new things keep sneaking their way in.

It has come to our attention that most people won't immediately know how to play our game upon seeing it (weird, right?), so I've been thinking about what we can do to create a condensed tutorial for our condensed demo.

So, I wrote up a design for a tutorial, but ended up getting way too into it and accidentally made it out of scope (woops). There's little chance that this will be ready for game demo day, but designing it with the demo in mind actually led me to figuring out ways to streamline the tutorial for the eventual full game.

The tutorial essentially only introduces players to the basic controls and game flow, leaving the rest to the players to learn for themselves. It also does a good job of introducing the player to the tone and narrative in the way without getting bogged down in exposition.

Anyway, check out the design doc for the tutorial after the break.

Tutorial

Here’s my idea for a condensed tutorial to use in the demo. If we can’t do this (or some minor alteration of this), we’ll probably just have to do a tutorial screen that just has the basic controls on it.

Unique Functionality We’ll Need

The use of the enemy/player turn change headers for informative text in a series

Conversation dialogue from a non-character (no portrait)

The ability to temporarily restrict certain player actions (e.g., only showing one option on the action menu)

The ability to trigger tutorial progression on certain player actions

The Tutorial

The tutorial consists of two very basic rooms.

Room 1 Events

The first room contains the Intern, a full mail cart, a desk below the mail cart, and a stairs.

The tutorial begins with the intern around the western corner of the room, with the mail cart in the center of the room and the stairs in the northern corner. The stairs are initially not interactable.

The enemy/player turn header flies onto the screen and shows a sequence of text (henceforth indicated via <”text”>). Player control should be removed during this section.

<”This is Adelaide--But she prefers to be called Lee.”>

<”Lee works in the mailroom at a company called Ethereal Eclectics.”>

<”Lee is overqualified for her job.”>

<”Lee knows that she is overqualified for her job.”>

<”Today, she may finally get the chance to prove it.”>

<”Not before she finishes her morning shift, though.”>

Next, a conversation starts on the left side of the screen, but the dialogue has no source. Each new dialogue line will appear every few seconds, but the lines should not be removed in this section. During this section, control should be given to the player, but move and wait should be the only options.

“Left Click on Lee to select her.”

“Next, click next to the stairs to MOVE her out of here.”

“Wait, no, I skipped a part. If you haven’t told Lee to WAIT yet, you can Right Click to UNDO that action.”

“Right, now move Lee onto the light bluish square next to the mail cart.”

“Click INTERACT to get to work.”

Interacting with the mail cart brings up a Lore Document containing the following text:

To: Adelaide Escher

Meet me in my office as soon as possible to discuss your future at the company. I see great potential in you!

Jasper Keen, CEO

Ethereal Eclectics

p.s. you’ll need this I.D. badge to open some doors. And maybe for some other things. Keep it on hand.

As the document is brought up, the conversation continues:

“Oh, what’s this? A letter for Lee? That’s unusual...”

When the player closes the document, the conversation continues:

“Well? You aren’t going to waste this opportunity, are you?”

At this point, interaction with the stairs is enabled. When the moves Lee to the next floor, room 2 of the tutorial begins.

Room 2

Room 2 contains a desk, an office drone, and stairs.

The intern begins at the southwest side of the room and the stairs are at the northeast side. The stairs are initially not interactable.

As soon as the room loads, a conversation begins between Lee and the office drone. Player control is removed.

Drone: “Intern?”

Lee: “Yeah, I need to go, I have an important-”

Drone: “HELP ME EXPORT THIS SPREADSHEET.”

Lee: “I’m sorry, I can’t, I have to get to-”

Drone: “DOOO MYYY WORRRKK.”

At this point, the drone moves toward Lee. The conversation then continues:

Lee: “No, see! I have this I.D. Badge!

Player control is returned, but the only available options are move and show I.D.. Show I.D. is, of course, actually Arcane Badge.

When the player uses show I.D. on the drone, Arcane Badge is cast on the drone, which kills it.

The conversation continues:

Lee: “...WHAT.”

Lee: “...”

Header text is displayed:

<”Well, he certainly won’t be bothering you anymore.”>

<”Better keep moving. The CEO is waiting.”>

The stairs are now interactable. Using them proceeds to the first real level.

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The Game

Lifelike is a turn-based, tile-based, team-based, hyphenated-classifications-based rogue-like RPG in which the player takes control of an intern climbing her way to the top of an increasingly other-worldly office building. Our design focuses on creating a unique, fast-paced combination of the best aspects of tactical RPGs and roguelikes, while also providing a meaningful, unintrusive, and integrated narrative experience.

Oh, and it's heavily rooted in satire, so don't worry about us taking ourselves too seriously.

The Team

With such a small team, everyone is essentially contributing to every part of the process, so take these titles with a grain of a spice of your choice.